George Keller DeLong, Blind Dutch Poet

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Memories of Our Pennsylvania Dutch Tour
of the Palatinate, August, 1951

By DON YODER

It was. almost dusk when the Heidelberg-Pirmasens bus lumbered to a stop
in the public square in Neustadt. We eleven Pennsylvania Dutch Toursmen
climbed out clutching our little bundles of baggage— for Fritz Braun had told
us to “bring only your tooth brushes and plenty of laughs”- and we entered
world. _ _ _

A world we weren't quite prepared
for! When my friend Dr. Fritz Braun
of Kaiserslautern, the principal Pala¬
tine authority on things Pennsylvania
Dutch, who had been my gracious guide
through the Palatinate in the Summer
of 1950, had invited me by letter to
bring my group to the Palatinate this
summer, we didn’t quite expect the
royal and official welcome we received.
For hardly had we arrived when out
marched the band from the Saalbau,
and following them there came groups
of costumed folkdancers, Banat-Pfiilzer

and up to the curb pulled radio truck
and aerial and we were suddenly on
the air.

Dr. Braun in a German address an¬
nounced to the radio listeners of the
Palatinate that the "Pennsylvania
guests” had arrived, and a group of the
rst charming children, in Palatine
costume, sang us a welcome song about
the “lovely little land” of the Palatin¬
ate. Our Pennsylvania Dutch spokes¬
man, Dr. A1 Kemp of Mertztown, re¬
plied in the Mudderschprooch, and the
smiling dancers poured us all glasses of
cold Mussbacher wine— wine from the
nearby village of Mussbach, which my
ancestors had exchanged for a wilder¬
ness home in the Oley Valley of Berks
County, Pennsylvania, in the year of
1709. Then into the dining hall, to
the accompaniment of the gay German
band, to a welcome Pennsylvania Dutch
Supper of sausage, potatoes, and soup—
pnd plenty of bilingual laughs!

Floraeland of Our Forefathers

Some of you will ask, where is this
Palatinate? and just what is its rela¬
tion to the Pennsylvania Dutch? That
be answered by saying that what

Mother England is to the New England
Yankee, the Palatinate is to the Penn¬
sylvania Dutchman. It is our ancestral
home, the still fertile seedbed where so
much that is precious to these Dutch
souls (and tongues) of ours has its deep
and ancient roots.

'Not all our ancestors came from
there, but enough came to fasten Pala¬
tine characteristics upon the German
dialect that we call “Pennsylvania
Dutch.” And from this hospitable land
on the Rhine, neighboring on Alsace,
Lorraine, Hesse, and Baden, there went
out in the eighteenth century two
streams of emigration. One found its
way to Pennsylvania, and from Penn¬
sylvania southward and westward with
the Pennsylvania Dutch diaspora into
many states of the union. The other
went down the Danube into the Balkan
states and the Volga Valley of Russia,
at the invitation of more tolerant rulers
than reign there now, to build village
homes on the East European frontier.

It “Looks Xike Home”

It’s a small land, that “Sunny Pala¬
tinate” along the Rhine. Only one-
seventh the size of Eastern Pennsyl¬
vania, but with over a million inhabit¬
ants. But it "looks like home.” The
fertile J'orderpfalz or Rhine plain re¬
sembles the flat Conestoga plain of
Lancaster County, the hilly Westrich
reminds one of the “Gravel’’ areas of
Lehigh County or the "Red Sandstone”
sections of York County, Pennsylvania.
There are of course many deep socio¬
logical differences between the culture
there and the rural culture that devel¬
oped in Pennsylvania, but the tongue
of the Palatinate still can babble away

( Continued on Page 5)

Photo by

PALATINE FOLK-DANCERS SWING IT AT BILLIGHEIM

GEORGE KELLER DELONG
THE BLIND DUTCH POET

By ALFRED L. SHOEMAKER

Bertha Rex of Gettysburg and George Keller DeLong of Pennsburg and
Allentown were our blind dialect poets.

George Keller DeLong was born in
Rockland Township, Berks County, on
October 21, 1880, the fourth of fifteen
children of Benneville B. and Josephine
(Keller) DeLong. Seven members of
this large family became blind.

Actually baptized George Pierce De¬
Long, the poet changed his middle
name to Keller when he started his
literary career.

Upon completing his education in
the rural schools of Longswamp Town¬
ship in Berks County, DeLong worked
for a time as a laborer in the shipyards
in Philadelphia. From about 1905 to
1912 he lived in Pennsburg, where he
made a living by selling his own make
ice cream. When he was forced by
blindness to give up his ice cream
business, he moved to Allentown where
he made his home with his mother.
The last three years of his life were
doubly tragic; he became insane.

George Keller DeLong died in the
State Hospital at Rittersville on Nov.
20, 1918. He is buried in St. Mark’s
Cemetery in South Bethlehem.

maidel mit da goldgaila hawr (the girl
with the golden hair), which it seems
he preferred above all the rest. Accord¬
ing to a sister, her brother actually at
one time was in love with a girl with
golden hair.

Before I come tdj George Keller De
Lonfc’s dialect writings I wish
the volumes of his English poetry, all
of them privately printed. One of t Ire
collections went through as many as
five editions. Those that I have seen
are: 1) The Pathos of Song, his first
collection of poems, which appeared in
1905; the five editions are dated 1905,
'13, ’15, ’16, ’18; 2) The Arm Most
Strong and Other Poems, which ap¬
peared in 1906; 3) Posies of the Lord ;
4) Sentimental Fantasies or Idyls of a
Lover; 5) Love Lore; 6) The Natal
{Continued on Page 2)

Cbtnjouncmg^ !

A Second Pennsylvania Dutch Tour of Europe,
July and August, 1952

Dr. DON YODER, Director

DUTCH TOURSMEN AND PALATINES VISIT BASF

fo Right: Mrs. Miriam Muffly of Lewisburg, Frau Sprater,
Johannes Kunzig, Mrs. Isabel Becker of Myerstown, Bob
of Ephrata, Joel Hartman of Lancaster, Fraulein Becker,
Nesseler, Dr. Fritz Braun, Prof. Al Kemp of Mertztown
in pocket), Frau Braun, Gerhardt Langguth, Dr. Emil
, Dr. Don Yoder (dark glasses), Dr. Friedrich Sprater,
Joseph Bast.

"Froehlich Polx — Goff Erhalts!" means ''Happy Palatinate — may
it" the title of a pioneer volume of Palatine poems by Karl
Nadler (1809-1849), the Harbaugh of the Palatinate.

Prolific Writer

DeLong, who was a voluminous versi¬
fier, wrote much of his verse in total
blindness. His brother Paul, also blind,
tells me that George used to dictate the
verse, either to him or to one of the
young men he employed to guide him
from door to door. For George Keller
DeLong made a living peddling pam¬
phlets of his poetry through the coun¬
ties of southeastern Pennsylvania.

The blind poet was musically gifted,
too; he played the piano, organ and
harp. Besides peddling his poetry, he
presented musical programs to audi¬
ences in country schoolhouses through¬
out Berks and Lehigh counties. The
songs he sang, many of them in Dutch,
were always those of his own composi¬
tion. There was one in particular, 5

Have you, like Al Kemp and the others who went to Europe with our Penn¬
sylvania Dutch Tour in 1951, been planning a trip to Europe all your life?
Would you like to join this year’s party, conducted by Dr. Don Yoder, giving
you the privileges of a personally conducted tour, opening to you not only
the main tourist attractions of England and the continent, but such charming
vacation spots as the Sunny Palatinate?

This year we are going to sail around July 9. direct to Naples, progress
triumphantly through Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, and England, and
sail back from Southampton, landing at New York around August 27. These
dates make it possible for public school teachers to join our group.

The accent on this year s tour, like last year’s, is on general cultural interests.
We’ll visit all the places you have wanted to see— London, Paris, Heidelberg,
Barcelona (a day’s stop on our way to Naples), the Bernese Oberland-that
vacation wonderland in the Swiss Alps-Naples, Florence, and Rome.

But in addition to learning to know these wonderful and gracious old cities,
we plan to see something of rural England and rural Germany. Our taste
of rural Germany will again center in Heidelberg and Neustadt. Wait till
you taste that Black Forest and Palatine cuisine in the delightful country
hotels along the Rhine!

Approximate costs and a more exact itinerary will be announced later. Write
us now if you wish to join us this summer on this stimulating trip. Address
your letters to Dr. Don Yoder, the Tour Director, at Franklin and Marshall
College, Lancaster, Pa.

FROEHLICH PALZ--
GOTT ERHALTS !

'AGE TWO

JANUARY 15, 195:

The Pennsylvania Dutch

GEORGE KELLER DELONG
THE BLIND DUTCH POET

( Continued from Page /)

Cord. Besides these there is a collec- f£|gj
tion of eleven songs to which he wrote Pill

both the words and the music,
called it Natal Throes.

He

First Poem

In the collection The Pathos of Song
the author tells us that The Brook,
written in 1898, was the first poem that
he attempted. The seventeen-year-old
poet presented it at a Friday afternoon
literary program at the Lyons gram¬
mar school. About the first edition of
his The Pathos of Song DeLong wrote
as follows: “I had 1,000 copies struck
off the press. This book was favorably
received by teachers and others, re¬
ceiving favorable commendation from
prominent persons and the local press
(it was published only locally) and
somehow or other it was heard from
even across the ‘big pond,’ as letters in
my possession prove, so that a copy
crossed the Atlantic.

“Jt also made enemies who, however
unwittingly, outdid my friends in com¬
mending this little ‘first born,’ for they
protested that it was ‘all absurd that
a mere laborer should have written it.’
Thanks to mine evil neighbors.

“I answered by publishing a sequel
to The Pathos of Song namely, The
Arm Most Strong and Other Poems,
the title poem of which concludes:

The universe speeds through the infi¬
nite deep

Its mysteries never disclosing.

Oh man don’t despair , for thou needs t
but to love—

Thy soul on God’s bosom reposing ?*

In the last years of his life DeLong
sometimes wrote under the pen name
of Blendy Schnitzimschunk.

Dialect Writings

GEORGE KELLER DeLONG

duction he wrote to Dialect Dich-toong:
“Much criticism seems to be provoked
against my dialect writings on two dis¬
tinct scores.

“The spelling is very disgusting. I
have ceased to worry about that. It is
no use. Neither German nor English
spelling can spell it all as I have ex¬
plained in another article on difficult
words.

“I also find that many are disgusted
with my naive manner in portraying
with a ‘shocking nudity.’

“When a Dutchman wants to tell
you the naked truth he usually says:
‘Ich will deer es mull in deitch farr-
tsay-ler.’ It is this colloquial that is
always in my mind when writing dia¬
lect, and it explains why nudity stands
out. It is meant that way.

THIS AND THAT

By ALFRED L. SHOEMAKER

We need an article on Der Posclita-Yockel uff’m Grabba-Barrick, down Bally
way. My attention was first called to the Poschta-Yockel when I was collecting
information in Eshbach on Dr. Frank R. Brunner, the author of the Bennsyl-

sylvania Dutch dialect column Der John — ; — 1 - — -

Schumacher in the Reading Adler.

The Lancaster Daily Evening Express
of Dec. 30, 1871, speaks of “a little
pamphlet which has found its way to
the Express table— printed in 1 856 —
en titled Pencilling s About Ephrata, by
a Visitor ” XVho was the author of this
pamphlet and where can a copy be
seen?

* * * * *

In an article in the Lancaster Intelli¬
gencer of November 9, 1864, I came
upon an equivalent of our Pennsylvania
Dutch Reida Reida Geili. The article
in question follows: “Isn’t it a nice
thing to be a grandmother? To have
young hands laid in your lap when
they are weary, and young ears listen¬
ing for ‘sing a song of sixpence,’ and
little legs astride your knee, galloping
to the time of

Ride a jack horse
To Barburry cross,

To see what Charlie can buy—

A penny brown loaf,

A sweet sugar cake,

And a half-penny apple pie.

Then to have the little pink toes come
out the stockings, and put up at us
temptingly, for

Hintra mintra, ciita corn,
Apple-seed and apple-thorn
Wire briar, limber-lock
Five gray geese in a flock.”

Do we have a nursery rhyme in dia¬
lect about babies’ toes?

S. Carolina Avenue, Atlantic City, New
Jersey. Our friends, the MacAdams,
opened their Dis tie fink in Atlantic City
in April, 1950. They go in strong for
Amish dishes.

On Sunday, December 2, 1951, the
Museum in Louisa, Virginia, dedicated
the Rudolph Hommel collection. Mr.
Hommel, who lost his life in assisting
Dr. Bassler to remove several hundred
bofcks from Philadelphia to Lancaster,
was one of tire keenest scholars who
had the Dutch bug. When down Vir¬
ginia way, stop in at Louisa and see
the art objects in the Hommel collec¬
tion. We at the Folklore Center will
always treasure the memory of this
great man.

* # * # #

Thu Lancaster Sunday News of Feb.
8, 1931, has an article entitled “Dutch
Columns Created Rare Group of Writ¬
ers.” Among the pen names listed' in
this article are Pit Hahnewackel, Mark
Fuchs, Joe Klotzkopp, Shinnerhannes
Jim Hoishreck, Nusbickel and Schtu-
dent Kopenhaver. Not one of these is
mentioned in Earl Robacker’s Pennsyl¬
vania German Literature. How many
of these dialect writers can you help to
identify?

*****

The manuscript section of the His¬
torical Society of Pennsylvania has an
article by Henry Beyerle under the
date of April 19, 1825, entitled “De¬
scription of D linkers.” Who was Henry
Beyerle and has this item ever been
published? I fail to fin'd it mentioned
in the standard bibliographies.

George Keller DeLong’s pamphlets of
dialect poetry for some reason unknown
to me are perhaps the rarest of all the
printed dialect literature. Several years
ago Professors Barba and Reichard and
William S. (Pumpernickle Bill) Troxell
of Allentown— all three, men who know

the Pennsylvania Dutch field intimately
—told me they had never seen any of
DeLong’s pamphlets. Not one of the
three histories of our dialect literature
makes mention of DeLong’s work.

In my collection at the Folklore
Center are three dialect pamphlets: 1)
Darr Friar oond De Friary by George
Keller DeLong, 1911, Published by the
Author, Pennsburg, Pa.; 2) Dialect
Dich-Toong Gshriver Foon George
Keller DeLong, Copyrighted 1912; and
3) Dialect Dich-toong foom G. K. De¬
Long, 1912, Published by the Author,
Pennsburg, Pa. All the poems included
in the second pamphlet are also found
in the third one.

The subject matter of DeLong’s dia¬
lect poems revolves around love and
courtship. There is much in them of
unrequited love. There is a delightful
poem De Dipplicher Blimcher Foon
Soomer-flecker (The Fate of Freckles)
—all about a maiden who is overtaken
one bright May morning magically
transferring her freckles from her face
to a less obvious part of her body.

In writing Pennsylvania Dutch De¬
Long struggled, like every one before
and after him, with the spelling of the
dialect. In Darr Friar he wrote on this
matter as follows: “In writing these
dialect poems I have not followed any
standard of spelling: it were of no use.
Those whom this is meant to entertain
could not read it at all; for this reason
I have spelled according to the simplest
rules that apply in English words, ex¬
cept where ‘ch’ as in ich (I).”

I shall conclude this article on
George Keller DeLong with the intro-

“Rank Realism as against symbolic
Idealism is my deliberate aim in dia¬
lect verse. It is my purpose to have
Pennsylvania Germans see themselves
as in a mirror, in the privy of their
own dialect.”

Pa. Dutch Farmer

In the issue of the Reading Eagle of
Feb. 3, 1901, William T. Alderman of
Birdsboro wrote: “Go where you will
in any of the far Western States, you
will find our old Keystone State repre¬
sented. You can take your choice of
any mode of travel from any Mississippi
River point, and travel westward until
you reach the Pacific coast, and along
the route of travel you will see the
thrifty settlements of the Pennsylvania
Germans. We always felt proud when
we were rated as a Pennsylvania Ger¬
man, for we generally found the man
from this State the most prosperous
farmer in the agricultural districts of
the far West.”

By GEORGE KELLER DeLONG
(1880- 1918)

De Maryann wor yoosht en kinnd.

En kinnd wor ich yoosht aw,

DucH harrve ich uft im harrtz ga-winsht
Ich het se forr my fraw.

De Maryann war finf yor olid,

Oon ich wor sell net gons,

Duch harrve ich shoon ga-wist ge-leebt
Wee’n mon’cher foon may mons.

Ich harrb de mam en mon’ch mull
gfroked:

“Och mam, we g’shwind kon’s sy
Dos ich de Mary hire-rer darf
Oon saw-ger: se is my?”

No sawgt de mam meer immer oils:

“Do gricksfit de Mary net
Bis d’iver’n basem-shteel dchoomber

konsht

So shicklich we marr set.”

Sojely needed are ten to fifteen min¬
ute jkits in ENGLISH on the Penn¬
sylvania Dutch. During Pennsylvania
Week teachers and school principals
from all over Pennsylvania wrote the
Folklore Center requesting such ma¬
terials. There are none. Let’s get busy!

A sample request from central Penn¬
sylvania: “In connection with Pennsyl¬
vania Week the members of the Junior
Historical Society in conjunction with
the students in the Pennsylvania His¬
tory classes of our school are contem¬
plating the presentation of a ‘Pennsyl¬
vania Dutch’ program or skit to the
local Parent-Teachers organization. We
would very much appreciate any in¬
formation you might be able to furnish
us as to possible sources of materials
suitable for our proposed program.”

*****

How many restaurants named The
Distlefink do you know? Two have
come to our attention at the Folklore
Center, one at 1933 N. 16th Street,
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the other at 104

Des ding hen meer no uft bro-weert
Tzoo shoffer so en drick:

De Mary haybt darr basem-shteel
Oon ich broweer my glick.

Don joomb ich duch net harrt ga-
noong,

Es fongt im husser-sitz
Oon warrick-lich in de husser ny
Rise ich en groser shlitz.

Now we es esser reddy wore
Oon ich mooss in de kich
No sawgt de mam we se des saned:
“Wos sull ich doo mit dich.

“Doo husht ken gons pore husser may,
Husht nix may we ay frock.

’S date note marr het en dry-goods-
shtore

Tzoo glay-der so en shtock.”

George W. Wagenseller, the author
of Snyder County Annals, Snyder
County Marriages and other works of
importance to the genealogist of Cen¬
tral Pennsylvania, died at his home,
1240 South Burnside Avenue, Los
Angeles, California on Oct. 13, 1951,
at the age of 83 years. Mr. Wagenseller
was connected with the Middleburg
Post from 1894 until 1928.

*****

A recent volume, “In and Around
the Lehigh Valley” by Leo Hammerl,
contains a sketch on William S. (Pump¬
ernickle Bill) Troxell. The author has
not been careful of his facts. He states
that the first newspaper in Lehigh
County was “Der Unabhangige Re-
publikaner,” established in 1810. This
is incorrect. The first one was the
Northampton Adverteiser, established
in 1807.

*****

The Reading Times and Dispatch
of Tuesday, May 30, 1874, reprinted an
article in the June issue of Lippincott’s
Magazine in which the author says
Reading is “surrounded by all the dull
calm of Pennsylvania Germany.”

*****

The Lebanon Daily Times of July
18, 1883, has an article entitled “Trip
Thru Lebanon County.” The author
writes: “A Lebanon County man who
sat near the writer in the cars, pointed
out various matters of interest along
the valley. Over there was a bam
[near Sheridan] with a straw roof, and
it was mentioned that there were others
in that vicinity. Years ago business in
thatching barns with straw was quite
an important one; but now such roofs,
as well as the ancient tile coverings for
buildings, are rarely seen.”

*****

Have you ever heard the term “Penn-
sylvanish” used? George R. Barr tells
us in the Ephrata Review of June 6,
1883: “Fifty years ago we used to speak
of a certain class of people, who did
not belong to any religious denomina¬
tion, as ‘Pennsylvanish,’ the German
for Pennsylvanian.”

Des Kinnd De Maryann

Impressions
of the Dutch

TThis is an extract from a series ol
articles, entitled Sketches of Pennsyl¬
vania, which appeared in 1833 in the
Co m mercial Herald.— Edi lor . ]

After crossing the Mine Ridge, and
passing from Chester into Lancaster
county, a remarkable change is visible
in the character, habits, and language
of the population. In Lancaster, the
German prevails in about the same
proportion as the Quakers do in Ches¬
ter, retaining their language as a means
of communication with each other,
though the greater part of them are
able to converse in English.

There is something very harsh and
unmusical in the dialect which this
people speak, and which differs of
course from the classical German, which
Goethe and Schiller have immortalized.
The German of Pennsylvania is, to all
intents and purposes, an unwritten
language, transmitted from mouth to
mouth, and therefore constantly cor¬
rupted, and changed by the introduc¬
tion of foreign and new fangled words.
We have been at the pains to count
the words in a legislative document,
professing to be in the German lan¬
guage: and have discovered that about
one fourth of the whole number are
English words a little disguised by
the German mode of spelling. A Ger¬
man scholar set down among the farm¬
ers df Lancaster, would probably be
as little able to comprehend what he
heard, or to make himself understood,
as if he had lighted upon a tribe
of the Aborigines.

Besides the peculiarity of language,
two other characteristics invariably
mark a German settlement, namely,
huge stone barns, and gigantic horses
immoderately fat. It seems as if these
frugal and industrious people, looked
first to the preservation of

and the comfort of their cattle, and
devoted no more attention to their
own accommodation, than could be
spared dfter these primary objects had
been accomplished. Not that dwellings
are bad, on the contrary, they are sub¬
stantial, durable, and of sufficient size
But they always look diminutive, in
comparison with the barns, and the
fact is always obvious that attention
has been given to the useful and the
productive, far above the beautiful or
the ornamental.

The Germans comprise the greaij
mass of the population of all that poij
tion of the Pequea Valley, which lit
in Pennsylvania, and they are ah
numerous in Frederick county, it
Maryland. They are of various i *
ligious denominations. A very consul
erable portion belong to the society c
Mennonists, who resemble the Quaker-
in their tenets as to war, and follow
the Jewish custom of leaving the ch i;
unshaved. We never saw one of the
personages driving his wagon along tl
turnpike, with a six inch beard, fille
with limestone dust, without wondet
ing that in a country where clean!:
ness was so essential as in Palestine
the barber’s profession had not rise
into higher repute. Nor did such
sight fail to dissipate all our notion <
the picturesque, as connected with flo\
ing beards, in certain books of poetr

For those who are interested in bil
ographical items on the Pennsylvail
Dutch here are several articles fro
the pen of David J. Nevin: The Pen
sylvania Dutch, Their Mode of Vei
table Gardening, The American (■
den, New York, April 1887; They I
Apart, Washington Star of June 8, 18
Pennsylvania Dutch, New York Dt
Tribune of August 21, 1878; The vA
dei fill Hog. Philadelphia TimJ^m
November 23, 1896. ^

/